Monday, October 30, 2017
Doesn't really answer the question
Headline: Never play double bass to an oyster
Main point:
To find out if the molluscs are sensitive to sound, therefore, the scientists set up two 16-member groups of them in tanks full of running salt water. The tanks were fitted with suspended speakers, which pushed out a range of different single frequency tones at various volumes for three minutes at a time. The effect on the oysters was measured by whether – and to what extent – they closed their shells when the sounds were running. The team found that the animals were particularly sensitive to low frequency sounds, especially between 10 and 200 hertz, but didn’t react to higher ones.Okay, but that's not hearing. Every living thing senses vibrations. So far, we only know that some plants and some insects and most vertebrates derive patterns from vibrations. Deriving meaning from an input is the definition of a sense. Otherwise it's just an input. More familiar example: Humans definitely have magnetic inputs. We have magnetic sensors in the nose and in the vestibule (inner ear) just as birds do. But we don't use those inputs at all, while birds use them intensively and intelligently for navigation. Thus birds have a magnetic sense and we don't.
Labels: Asked and badly answered
¶ 3:42 AM
